Development of silicon-based potentiometric sensors: Towards a miniaturized electronic tongue

Sensor miniaturization can be reached by the integration of potentiometric sensors with silicon technology which can allow the construction of micro-dimensioned sensors with different geometries for deposition area. Silicon fabrication technique will allow implementation of different structural layer and metal thin films, to investigate influence of different materials. PVC-based membranes doped with several metallo complexes of porphyrins and corroles have been deposited to the electrodes surface and their potentiometric properties were evaluated calculating the response towards several ions in a concentration range from 10(-5) to 10(-1) M. The developed system was applied for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of different artificial wine samples, characterized by the presence of polluting agents such as SO2, H2S and CH3CO2H in a concentration range from 10(-6) to 10(-1) M. The "electronic tongue" was able to well distinguish the wines with different polluting agents and to well predict the amount of each one, also at low concentrations.